Malaysian ex-editor to buy national news agency: report

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 1 (AFP) - 18:12 - A former Malaysian editor is planning a takeover of the national news agency Bernama along with government-run radio and TV stations, a business magazine reported Sunday.

The Edge magazine said Abdul Kadir Jasin, who stepped down as editor in chief of the New Straits Times in January, had submitted a proposal to the government's Economic Planning Unit to take over Bernama.

Bernama is now a statutory body under the information ministry.

The Edge said the deal would also include Radio Television Malaysia 2, six radio stations and the National Film Development Corporation, which are also currently under the ministry's purview.

Kadir Jasin and the editor-in-chief of Bernama could not be contacted for comment on the report.

Kadir Jasin was appointed chairman of Bernama's board on September 1. The government has been planning to privatise the agency, which has been operating for 32 years and has a staff of about 400.

The Edge said he had received "tacit approval" for his proposal, in which two other people were involved. It named them as Mohamad Ibrahim Mohamad Nor, managing director of Padiberas Nasional, and Jalaluddin Baharuddin, a former press secretary to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

When Kadir Jasin stepped down from the New Straits Times, there was strong speculation that he had fallen foul of Mahathir over his coverage. The New Straits Times (NST) is the most strongly pro-government newspaper.

But in July Kadir Jasin took over Berita Publishing, the magazine publishing arm of the NST group.

The Edge said the planned Bernama deal would be Kadir's second bid in a decade for a media group, following his involvement in a management buyout of the New Straits Times group in 1993 through a company called Realmild.